By Roseann Rife – Four years ago this week, the renowned Uygur economist Ilham Tohti was detained by Chinese authorities and eventually sentenced to life in prison for separatism. Commentators predicted that the authorities intended to initiate a severe crackdown in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to head off growing ethnic tensions and silence moderate voices. They were right; the region is now a virtual police state.

By Kurban Niyaz – Authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang region have arrested a prominent Uyghur intellectual for exhibiting “nationalistic tendencies,” according to a source in exile, amid an intensifying crackdown on notable members of the ethnic group.

The two chairs of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Senator Marco Rubio and Representative, issued a statement this week highlighting the deteriorating human rights situations in East Turkestan and the persecution of Uyghurs by the Chinese authorities. The statement expresses particular concern for the expansive security system and increasingly invasive surveillance tactics being used by the Chinese government, such as the mass collection of DNA from the Uyghur people, to create a biometric database to more easily track and control Uyghurs, Tibetans and Chinese dissidents. It condemned these measures as a ‘gross violation of privacy and international human rights’.

By Amnesty International – Shafkat Abasi, a member of the Tatar ethnic minority, was detained by Chinese authorities on 13 March of 2017 and has not been heard from since. It is believed his detention is due to accessing foreign websites from his computer, connection with an elderly patient who is an imam, and his possession of banned religious books. His family have not been provided with any information and fear that he is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.

By Shohret Hoshur – More than two months since the Communist Party Congress in Beijing, authorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang region continue to place ethnic Uyghurs deemed “extremists” in political re-education camps, despite assurances the detentions would end after the sensitive annual meeting.

By Simon Denyer – For 40-year-old Mao Ya, the facial recognition camera that allows access to her apartment house is simply a useful convenience.

“If I am carrying shopping bags in both hands, I just have to look ahead and the door swings open,” she said. “And my 5-year-old daughter can just look up at the camera and get in. It’s good for kids because they often lose their keys.”

By Tom Blackwell – At home in Ontario, his activism barely raised an eyebrow. But when a quiet-spoken Chinese dissident travelled to the country of his birth last year, security officers shadowed him for weeks, booking hotel rooms next to his, even following him to breakfast.